When BankBoston developed its strategy for lending to
             telecommunications companies in 1999, it was responding to several changes
             in the telecommunications regulatory environment. The first of those
             changes was not a regulation per se but a ruling by federal judge Harold
             Green in `984. That ruling, the result of an antitrust suit brought by the
             U.S. government against telephone industry giant American Telephone and
             Telegraph (AT&T), "redefined the structure of the industry." (Rainie, 1999,
             unpaged) It divided the U.S. into 1`61 Local Access and Transport Areas
             (LATAs), each of which, in turn, had a number of local exchanges. AT&T had
             to sell all of its local exchange business; that spin-off was further
             rearranged to form seven Regional Bell Holding Companies (known as Baby
             Bells, or, more formally, RBOCs). (Rainie, 1999, unpaged)
             All this spinning off' left lots of room for new companies to enter
             the market, and for some older, regional, independent AT&T-era companies to
             expand or to enter other markets. During this time, AT&T, once the premier
             telephone top-of-mind name in the country, was relegated to a subservient
             position, providing nothing directly to the consumer, but arguably
             underpinning the entire telecommunications network nonetheless. In 1996,
             President Bill Clinton signed into law the Telecommunications Act of 1996,
             which was the more immediate impetus to BankBoston's development of a
             strategy to invest in telecommunications.
             The primary objective of the bills that preceded that compromise bill
             President Clinton signed was to "promote in the telephone and cable markets
             while easing regulations on cable prices and broadcast-station ownership."
             (Hendricks, 1999, 39) Congress thought legislation was needed to spur
             competition and investment in advanced telecommunications networks.
             However, President Clinton thought the original bill sent to him promote...